[PROPOSAL] Wall buttons in default style

[Minim]

So after looking at climbers and fallers through Clear Physics Mode I've thought of a new object which behaves just like normal buttons: Wall buttons! These are graphically redesigned to look like they're attached to a wall, but they do have advantages: It can prevent backroutes because some solutions may involve climbing up (or falling down) a certain wall, and that's where these buttons come in to play.

I've thought of two different ideas for trigger area placements: One outside the wall (Where climbers will not trigger it but usually possible otherwise) and one inside the wall (where it can only be triggered with climbers). Of course, the length of the area should be no less than two pixels if we want to allow both. I changed the colour of the latter's socket to purple to disguise the two.

It might be a bit late to suggest object ideas, and they technically are redundant to the normal button but I hope these are popular enough to be worth including. I also don't have the trigger areas's coordinates for its nxmo file yet. Thoughts?

[IchoTolot]

Rotated buttons get their trigger areas quite obscured, so I would be in favor of a proper standard wall button if it gets a proper trigger area.

Although I would be against 2 different trigger types. Reason: Even if it's visually indicated, it's yet another thing players will have to learn in an already complex game, while the gain is very limited.

So a standard wall button (climber-activatable) with 1 fitting trigger gets a yes from me, as rotated buttons get their trigger areas quite obscured, but different types of wall buttons with different trigger types I find to be unnessesarily complex.

It might be a bit late to suggest object ideas

Well, it's just a variant of an existing object so it isn't totally out of the box.

[mantha16]

im def in favour of buttons that can be placed vertically

[namida]

For it to be included with default, it would need to actually have strong use cases. (Note that this doesn't in any way mean it couldn't exist in a custom style.)

Putting it near the ground to be walker-pushable serves no purpose whatsoever. You can just put a normal button on the ground.

Pushing by climbers is a stronger argument, but I would think most, if not all, such cases could instead work by having a small ledge at the top of the wall, with the button placed on that. Are there many cases where this would not be feasible?

Should it be included, a "must be a climber to reach the trigger area" setup is out of the question. Of course it's not completley avoidable as content creators could just move it further into the wall to create this, but I would consider that misleading design.

[mantha16]

i mean for me its cos obviously you have to edit the trigger area axis in the (I wanna say nxmo file???) which is why just rotating the button doesnt work.  I think aesthetically having normal looking buttons but the trigger point being better placed is better than putting them on shelves plus unless you use jumper/climber combo a climber isnt going to trigger them alone.

Why cant it be must be a climber to trigger? as long as the button itself isnt hidden its not misleading design.  I also would like to be able to rotate pick ups but they obvs have the same issue re trigger areas.  Obviously its not an issue per se  i just would like it if buttons and pick ups could be placed both vertically and horizontally

[namida]

Why cant it be must be a climber to trigger?

Because it wouldn't look like it should be. And it's going to always be somewhat of a problem because any given object could always be made climber-only or walkers-can-push-too simply by moving it further in or out of the wall (though I would note - any that can be pushed by walkers, would also be pushed by a faller falling down the wall).

[Simon]

Wall button with special rules for skills, or wall button with cute trigger area: This needs concrete examples of how it fixes backroutes that aren't easily fixable otherwise.

How is it clear that walkers do/don't trigger wall buttons? How is it clear that fallers do/don't trigger wall buttons?

From mere looking, I would have expected that all skills can trigger wall buttons. This would make these wall buttons eye candy for regular buttons. NL's philosophy is that things should act according to how they look. Pressable by any skill, they of course would be fine, but probably not what Minim/mantha16 have in mind?

-- Simon

[namida]

This needs concrete examples of how it fixes backroutes that aren't easily fixable otherwise.

Or implements an idea that, in and of itself, isn't doable otherwise. Keeping in mind that most cases of "climber must climb a wall to reach the button" could instead be resolved something like this:

[WillLem]

Great idea! To be fair though, you could just make a custom graphic of a sideways-facing button and then sort out the X/Y trigger position.

Sure, this would mean that fallers can trigger it as well as climbers, but that's a decent enough trade-off if the idea is that you want a climber to press the button. It seems that in any case where a climber is necessary to press the button, there would be no lems to fall onto it anyway (as they would have had to somehow get to the top of the wall).

[namida]

Sure, this would mean that fallers can trigger it as well as climbers, but that's a decent enough trade-off if the idea is that you want a climber to press the button. It seems that in any case where a climber is necessary to press the button, there would be no lems to fall onto it anyway (as they would have had to somehow get to the top of the wall).

It is possible to place it so climbers can trigger it but nothing else can. It is not possible to place it so that climbers + fallers can, but walkers (assuming some other skills are used to get them high enough up the wall, most likely builders) cannot.

However, any wall button would have the issue where depending on its placement, simply by one pixel difference, it could either be climbers-only or all-lemmings. And that's a big problem, because it would be very hard to determine at a glance and possibly slightly tricky even with clear physics mode. This is just a general consequence of how climbers work - similar to how the actual location of most other skills is considered to be 1 pixel inside the ground they're standing on (but it does NOT move inside a wall when turning around), a climber's location is considered to be 1 pixel inside the wall, allowing them to reach trigger areas non-climbers cannot reach (without destroying part of the wall, anyway).

[Simon]

X/Y trigger position.
mean that fallers can trigger it as well as climbers

Yes, as long as designers avoid the following edge case.

The nasty edge case that tileset designers should avoid is: You can make the button trigger's horizontal area cover exactly the wall pixels and no air pixels. This produces surprisingly skill-dependent behavior:

Climber: Pin is inside the wall and would trigger.
Faller: Pin is in front of the wall and would miss.
Builder: I don't know if it enters the wall. Guess: It would miss. namida says: Yes, it misses.
Walkers on that builder staircase: Enter the wall, will trigger. Do not enter the wall, will miss.

This is a result of Lemmings 1's insane placement of the lemming pin (effective coordinate) in the ground for walkers, and in the wall for climbers. Turning walkers are, for a moment, in the ground and in the wall. Oh-noing climbers are also inside the wall and thus won't fall; you can argue that this one is nice, even.

Tileset designers, please avoid this edge case. In an ideal world, you wouldn't have to pay attention to this edge case; these warning posts are a symptom of a problem in the game physics that's, sadly, strongly ingrained in core physics.

-- Simon

[namida]

Builder: I don't know if it enters the wall. Guess: It would miss.
Walkers on that builder staircase: Enter the wall, will trigger.

Builder, yes, it would miss. And no, walkers on the staircase will not enter the wall - this was true for DOS / etc, but is not the case on NeoLemmix (on a technical level, the walker does enter the wall during physics update, but is moved out again before the object checks happen). Only a climber would be "inside" the wall (including a bomber that was assigned to a climber).

[Simon]

Thanks, amended the post. Right, NL walker physics are different from DOS.

-- Simon